Is Urban Meyer really done? With the Floyd Mayweather of college football, it's anyone's guess

The precise number of times Floyd Mayweather has retired is open to debate. Is it four? Is it five? Six? Do you count the time he had to go to jail? Is he really retired, even now?

Whatever the number, it’s all semantics. Mayweather would win some fights, then call it quits until he was rested and lured out of a life of gambling on NBA games with something interesting and lucrative.

He’s 50-0. He may fight a Japanese kickboxer in a three-round exhibition. Or he won’t.

Urban Meyer has retired three times, twice at Florida and once at Ohio State, a decision he announced Tuesday morning. There was also two leave of absences at Florida.

He’s 54 and owns three national titles (two at UF, one at OSU) plus two additional unbeaten seasons; one at Utah, one at OSU. Neither resulted in a title due to the BCS and a postseason ban, respectively.

He’s a frenzied workaholic and overly passionate coach. Tuesday he cited health issues, fatigue, stress and the “cumulative” effect of scandal early this season that saw him suspended for three games. He’s previously dealt with all of the above, plus heart issues and misplaced priorities.

He’s one heck of a college football coach. He’s also pretty much a wreck.

No one who knows Meyer can imagine him easing into a life of, say, woodworking, stamp collecting or moving to Naples to play shuffleboard. He has a job waiting as a special assistant something or the other at Ohio State, but that is unlikely to satisfy his competitive instincts. He gets an office and a pay check.

So in a year or so, when he’s rested, golfed out and maybe looking for a new challenge, does he coach again, at least for another one of these sprint assignments (six at Florida, seven at Ohio State)?

“I believe I will not coach again,” Meyer said.

Well, that clears things up.

It took less than a second for the news of Meyer’s latest retirement to break for speculation to focus on him taking over at the University of Southern California in 2020. After all, the Trojans have an embattled head coach, Clay Helton, and a wavering fan base who barely showed up last year.

Give Meyer some mornings to sleep in. Then sell him on life out in LA. Send him texts with screengrabs of all that great weather as he’s trudging through the slush of central Ohio. Note that L.A. isn’t a college town where he’d live in a fishbowl – they’ve got much bigger celebrities out there than some football coach. And besides, he’s no Sean McVay.

And hey, recruiting isn’t so bad. There’s so much nearby talent the SC coach doesn’t have to live on a plane. Maybe they can buy him a helicopter.

Helton has already countered the Meyer momentum by signing Kliff Kingsbury to be his offensive coordinator next season, a move that might foul up all the rumors and projections. Kingsbury was fired at Texas Tech but he did a decent enough job. No one ever doubted his offenses in Lubbock anyway. With USC’s talent to work with, Kingsbury may change the direction of everything and this job may not open.

Of course, if Meyer is hovering, it might.

There probably aren’t many places Meyer would go. He’d have to believe he can win a national title to bother returning, sort of like how Mayweather isn’t un-retiring for weak pay-per-view revenue. He’d have to like the lifestyle. An obsessed SEC program probably wouldn’t be healthy for him; he burns out quick.

“The style of coaching that I’ve done for 33 years is very intense, very demanding,” Meyer said. “I’ve tried to delegate more, be CEO-ish more. The product started to fail.”

Fail? He’s 82-9 at Ohio State.

Meyer would certainly need full control and the ability to build out his own program – which includes hiring lots and lots of his people. One problem with that, almost all of them are staying in Columbus. He can always break a few away and find some others, though.

In the end, no one truly knows. That probably includes Meyer. Retiring is like quitting smoking: you can believe it’s going to stick, but it probably won’t. Meyer’s first retirement lasted less than one day. The next one was for about 10½ months.

Maybe he’s getting better at it.

Meyer says he doesn’t have a plan right now to return. He didn’t have a plan to take over Ohio State when he quit the second time at Florida, either.

He couldn’t have predicted Jim Tressel would be fired. He was though. And then it became too much to turn down, sort of like knowing you can make nine figures boxing against some loud-mouthed MMA fighter who had never boxed before.

Retirements come. Opportunities do also.

Urban can say what he “believes” all he wants. There is a reason no one believes that is or isn’t the truth. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.

Just to be safe, Clay and Kliff better start drawing up some good plays for USC.

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More Urban Meyer coverage on Yahoo Sports:
• Forde: Meyer has one complicated, drama-filled legacy
• Wetzel: Big Ten rivals finally have their chance
• Where Meyer’s accomplishments rank in CFB history
• 10 things to know about Meyer’s Ohio State successor